Brexit Roundup: A dramatic Friday of a leaked letter and a resignation

Our Brexit Roundup looks at a dramatic few days in the Brexit story from a leaked letter to the DUP and a British Ministerial resignation, and all this with the Prime Minister in Belgium and France for the Armistice commemorations.

EU & UK {Pic :Dave Kellam via Wikimedia Commons)

November 10

DUP Opinion Piece

DUP Leader Arlene Foster wrote an opinion piece in the Belfast Telegraph where she warned the British Government that the desire to produce the right deal can be ‘superseded by the perceived need to produce a deal’.

Ms Foster added that the party leaders had written to the British Prime Minister on 01 November ‘outlining broad concerns’ about the direction of negotiations.

The letter by Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds said:

“It is vital for both NI & the entire UK that if agreement is reached, it must be clear and must not risk opening divergence within the UK for generations to come.”

“…It is “totally unacceptable that there could be a Withdrawal Agreement which provided that Northern Ireland at any time in the future could be subject to the rules of the Customs Union or parts of the Single Market whilst the rest of the UK was not”.

Referring to the response sent to the DUP from Theresa May, which was leaked and published in a British newspaper the day previous, Ms Foster said:

“Instead, I received confirmation that we were right to be concerned.”

The concerns of the DUP that if Northern Ireland remains part of the Single Market, key industries would be subject to rules and standards with ‘no democratic input to them’, as they argue ‘rules would be made in Brussels rather than Stormont or Westminster’.

Ms Foster also wrote that the DUP ‘does not stand alone’ against this proposal.

Friday November 09

The opinion piece was published the day after a dramatic Friday in the Brexit story.

DUP Interview- No support for PM

In the late afternoon, the DUP leader told RTÉ’s Tommie Gorman that she would not support Theresa May’s plans for the backstop.

Ms Foster said in the interview that the Irish Government does not need a backstop to prevent a hard border, what they need is ‘a trading relationship’.

A spokesperson for the British Prime Minister said the government ‘will not agree to anything that brings about a hard border on the island of Ireland’.

NI Pro-Remain Parties

Also, on Friday, it was confirmed that the main anti-Brexit parties in Northern Ireland will travel to London together on Monday 12 November to meet with British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish and Welsh Nationalist parties, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. They will also meet with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Wednesday 14 November.

Pro-EU rally in Belfast earlier this year attended by a number of pro-Remain MLAs (Pic: Inside Ireland.ie)

Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Michelle O’Neill said:

“The Brexit negotiations are now in a crucial phase and this is another crucial show of unity when we will once again be asserting our common position that the ‘backstop’ as already agreed must be maintained.

“The backstop is the absolute bottom line for Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance and Green Party as we enter the endgame of the Brexit negotiation process on Britain’s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU27.”

Consequences of an Irish Sea regulatory border are ‘massive’ -TUV

Responding to the leaked letter, pro-Brexit MLA and former MEP Jim Allister, accused Theresa May of being ‘so unwilling to stand up to the EU’s land grab that she appears ready to concede that the EU border should extend to the Irish Sea and thereby separate Northern Ireland from its integral place within the UK’.

“The consequences of an Irish Sea regulatory border are massive: it cuts us off from the benefit of new trade deals; ties us for ever to the EU Acquis (the accumulated body of EU law), which we cannot even influence; places us within the jurisdiction of the ECJ; restricts the flow of goods to and from our biggest market, GB; and, therefore, progressively, orientates our economy away from our biggest single market – as it diverges from EU regulation, but we can’t, with a corresponding increasing alignment with the economy of the Republic. The Backstop, as intended by its proponents, is a template for Irish unity – making Mrs May’s compliance with Brussels’ demand all the more perfidious.”

Fianna Fáil: Backstop ‘Contradiction’ -Is it temporary or not?

Fianna Fáil Brexit Spokesperson Lisa Chambers called on Tánaiste Simon Coveney to explain what she has described as an ‘apparent contradiction’ between what is being said publicly and privately about whether or not the Backstop arrangement will be temporary or not.

The border between NI & the rest of Ireland. The backstop aims to prevent checks on the border. (Pic: InsideIreland.ie)

Deputy Chambers said she expressed her party’s concern about the Taoiseach’s ‘change of tone and language about the Backstop last week’. “We were told that nothing had changed,”she said.

“However, in the extracts published by The Times newspaper this morning, Prime Minister May describes the Backstop in the following terms: ‘Your letter refers to the backstop as being a permanent arrangement enshrined in international law. We should be clear that the backstop would only ever be temporary.’

“In a spirit of being constructive and responsible, I would call on the Tánaiste to move quickly to explain his understanding of this statement by the Prime Minister and explain how it accords with his repeated assurances that the Backstop is ‘cast iron’ and cannot be time limited.”

While the leaked letter to the Times was dominating the Friday morning headlines, The British-Irish Council held its 31st Summit meeting, hosted by the Government of the Isle of Man in Douglas.

In the Communiqué, Ministers from the various jurisdictions and devolved Governments (with the exception of Northern Ireland) updated the Council on their activity in relation to Brexit.

“They discussed the importance of maintaining the constitutional and formal relationships across the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies. The Council engaged on topics including the economy and trade, free movement of goods and people, the Common Travel Area and ongoing relations with the EU.”

In the post-meeting press conference, the Taoiseach told journalists that in relation to the leaked letter, the ‘less said, the better,” but he did mention how important a UK/EU trade deal was for Irish goods bound for the European continent. Indeed, the First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones said that 70% of trade between Great Britain and Ireland passed through Welsh ports like Holyhead:

“The last thing I would like to see is a hard border between Ireland and Wales.”

Micheál Martin: “Brexit is one of the most destructive decisions taken by any free nation in eight decades”

Ireland & the EU (Pic: InsideIreland.ie)

While the council was meeting, Friday November 09 was also the second day of the 39th ALDE Party Congress in Madrid, Spain. This follows on from the EPP congress in Finland earlier in the week attended by the Taoiseach.

Micheál Martin told the audience of more than 1,000 liberals of the importance of selling the virtues of the EU, in face of rising nationalism in countries such as Hungary and Italy.

“We’ve forgotten to talk about the much bigger impact of the Union and exactly what it means, in hard facts, for people from every walk of life.

“This is why the lies of the Leave campaign worked in the Brexit referendum and it is why so many anti-EU parties are trying to copy the English anti-EU ideologues.

“Brexit is one of the most destructive decisions taken by any free nation in eight decades. It is a threat to the prosperity of all of our countries.”

-Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin

‘Dishonest and Dark campaign’

In the part of his speech relating to Brexit, Micheál Martin called the Leave campaign in the 2016 EU Referendum, ‘dishonest and dark’.

“Today we have at our disposal the strongest arguments in favour of the EU which we have ever had. Every single claim of the Brexiteers about what would happen if there was a Leave vote has been proven to be false. Even the wildest and most aggressive Brexiteer has been reduced to complaining that the Union won’t let them keep more of the benefits of membership.

“Brexit hasn’t even happened and the UK is poorer, weaker and more open to manipulation by aggressive countries than at any time in the last fifty years.

“They said it was an easy vote with no costs attached, but the costs are already large and growing all the time.”

-Micheál Martin TD

Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland: “The Irish economy is intrinsically volatile”

Speaking at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Philip R. Lane discussed the importance of the enterprise sector to economic performance.

While noting that the economy is currently in an ‘expanded expansion phase’ Mr Lane warned that the Irish economy is ‘intrinsically volatile’.

“There can be sudden and sizeable adverse shifts in fundamentals, especially for small and highly open economies including changes in international conditions, disorderly Brexit scenarios, shifts in international trade or domestic policy errors that add to pro-cyclical dynamics in the economy.”

-The Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Philip R. Lane

The Governor concluded by outlining the new Central Bank Strategic Plan which was launched on 09 November. The plan identifies five thematic priorities for the Bank:

Lord Adonis and Dominic Grieve MP visit Belfast
With all the discussions on Brexit in full fervour, two leading members of the Remain side from the two British political parties came to Belfast for a lecture and Q&A session.

Lord Andrew Adonis (right) in Belfast in the Summer 2018 to discuss a ‘People’s Vote’. Geoff Watt (left) is an Executive member of the European Movement in NI (Pic: C Hanna)

Labour’s Lord Andrew Adonis called for a People’s Vote on the final Brussels deal. He said he was struck by the fact that all households in Northern Ireland were sent a copy of the ‘The Agreement’ signed on Good Friday 1998 and suggested that a copy of the Withdrawal Agreement if it is agreed by the UK and EU to be sent to every household in the UK.

Questions were fielded on the logistics of a ‘People’s Vote’ and how it would come about. Dominic Grieve said it would happen by Parliament rejecting the PM’s deal and submitting a motion on another referendum to accept the deal or remain in the EU. Lord Adonis said Article 50 could be suspended in order to have a referendum on the deal.

A legal case on whether or not Article 50 can be revoked is still ongoing.

Resignation of a UK Minister of State

As if this wasn’t a dramatic enough day, the minister of state in the Department of Transport, Jo Johnson resigned on Friday afternoon. All this with the Prime Minister in Belgium, and later France.

Unlike his better known brother, Boris, the former minister backed remain in the EU Referendum but like his brother believes that the Withdrawal Agreement, which is being finalised in Brussels and Whitehall, will be ‘a terrible mistake’.

“Indeed, the choice being presented to the British people is no choice at all. The first option is the one the Government is proposing: an agreement that will leave our country economically weakened, with no say in the EU rules it must follow and years of uncertainty for business. The second option is a “no deal” Brexit that I know as a Transport Minister will inflict untold damage on our nation. To present the nation with a choice between two deeply unattractive outcomes, vassalage and chaos, is a failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis.”

-Jo Johnson MP

Where Mr Johnson junior does differ with his brother is that he supports a referendum on the options:

“Britain stands on the brink of the greatest crisis since the Second World War. My loyalty to my party is undimmed. I have never rebelled on any issue before now. But my duty to my constituents and our great nation has forced me to act. I have today written to the Prime Minister asking her to accept my resignation from the Government. It is now my intention to vote against this Withdrawal Agreement. I reject this false choice between the PM’s deal and “no deal” chaos. On this most crucial of questions, I believe it is entirely right to go back to the people and ask them to confirm their decision to leave the EU and, if they choose to do that, to give them the final say on whether we leave with the Prime Minister’s deal or without it.

Inside Ireland

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